Incandescent
by raniblows
Summary: Bonnie Bennett and Damon Salvatore wake up a new world. Damon still has his superhuman speed, and Bonnie has the ability to manipulate the world around her. This is the story of their non-lives after Mystic Falls and what happens when they finally return.
1. Chapter 1

**Incandescent**

**Chapter 1.1**

There was a road, endless gray hills, and air so dry it felt like sandpaper in her lungs. Barefoot, she walked the double yellow lines in the center of the road like a tight rope. Where were her shoes? If she had to guess, she'd say they were with her clothes. She hadn't died in the white dress she was wearing now.

Squinting up at the broiling orange sky, she decided it was going to storm. Well, _could_ it storm here?

She remembered the light. Bright and blinding, but not painful. It hadn't felt like anything. And then someone standing beside her, fingers intertwined with her own. She thought for a second it had been her Grams, but that wasn't possible. She'd watched the woman find her peace. Wherever her elder witch had wound up, it wasn't here. Couldn't be. Bonnie refused to imagine her Grams anywhere this desolate. This lonely.

"And the prize package for dying is—two all-expense paid trips to nowheres-ville."

Bonnie whipped around. Standing there with dark hair framing his face and the top buttons undone in his shirt, was Damon Salvatore.

She released a breath that almost sounded like a laugh and felt nothing where her heart should have been.

"It was you," she said. She remembered the hand, and now she remembered the body to which the hand had belonged. "You died, too."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

It _was_ a bad thing. A very bad thing. But it was comforting to have someone there with her. Someone she almost trusted.

"I don't know where we are," she said for no other reason than to say something. Silence made everything feel less solid, like a fuzzy waking dreamland.

It looked like they were in the middle of a desert, but it was no desert she had ever seen on earth. There was no sunlight. No life. Just the road and sand as gray as ash.

Damon walked to the edge of the road and kicked at a sand pile. "Looks like purgatory to me."

"But wasn't the Other Side a form of purgatory? It doesn't make sense that there would be two."

"Well, Bon-Bon, if I had all of the answers, we wouldn't be here right now." His face screwed into a cynical glare. "Or _I_ wouldn't, at least. There was never much hope for you, was there?"

With half a road worth of space between them, Bonnie couldn't reach out and slap him. She wanted to. No, there had never been any hope for her, because she had given her life countless times to save everyone else in her life. Her best friend. The boy she loved. As she thought about it, she realized she would have done it all again. Because there was no one else on the planet who would have. No one else cared as much as she did, and no one else ever could.

But she would not stand here, wherever here was, and let Damon Salvatore, of all people, make her feel any less than what she was. A hero and a rock star of a friend.

She started walking.

"Was that a sore spot?" Damon asked behind her.

She refused to respond, preferring to speculate instead. There had to be some logic to this place, something more than what she could currently see.

The road beneath her feet felt rough, but warm. She welcomed the feeling. Everything else about the place made her feel so numb. She knew for certain that death wasn't some black void of oblivion. After facing it enough times, she decided it was a transition. She had transitioned to the Other Side, and now she would transition to this new place. As scary and unfamiliar as it was.

"I don't mean to sound clingy, but if you leave me out here, it's a pretty safe bet I'll go bat-shit crazy." Damon was at her side in a second, staring at her with ice blue eyes. He still had his super-human speed, so did that mean he was still a vampire?

"Are you saying that you aren't already bat-shit crazy?"

"Nice one, Judgy." He gave a cocky half smile. "I mean, everything in the world I have ever cared about has just slipped through my fingers, but if we can't at least laugh about it then we might as well be dead." He paused and said, "Wait a minute."

Bonnie had to admit that his cavalier attitude was the only thing keeping her from curling into the fetal position right there in the road. But it was an act, she was sure. They had lost everything, and now they were stuck in this new place together. There wasn't really anything funny about that.

"So what do—?" he started and then paused like he'd heard something. Impossible, except she heard it, too. Growling? No. An engine. There was an engine coming from…behind them.

They turned to face the sound. In the distance, they could see a blur of white winding around the bend in the road.

"I guess we're not alone," she said, both relieved and terrified by what that might mean.

As the thing grew closer, they moved over to the shoulder. Out of the way just in case. The rumbling sound grew louder and seemed as powerful as thunder after being in silence for so long.

Sooner than she would have expected, the thing was within clear viewing range. It was a car, she thought, but unlike any she had ever seen. It was circular, like a hamster wheel, with one door on the side and room for maybe two people. Whoever drove the vehicle whisked by them without a glance in their direction, continuing on into what she'd originally thought was oblivion.

"Wait," Damon called, running out into the road a second too late. Bonnie thought he could have caught up to the driver if he'd wanted to, but instead he turned to her. "What the hell was that?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, but we're following it."

They stood together in the road, watching the vehicle get smaller and smaller until it disappeared. She welcomed it as a good omen. It was a sign that this new world was anything but a desolate wasteland. If they could find other people, there would be someone to explain where they were and if there was even the slightest possibility that they might return to the home they'd left behind.

Side by side, they began to walk. Bonnie barefoot and looking like a bedraggled angel with her white dress and messy hair. Damon dressed the same as he always was looking like a shadow of his former self as he squinted into the wind.

**Chapter 1.2**

"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves," Damon sang, obviously trying to be annoying. "And this is how it goes."

"Shut up."

They had been walking for hours. Maybe. It could have been minutes. Days? She wasn't sure how she was supposed to tell. One stretch of road looked eerily similar to the next. The sky hadn't changed. And there hadn't even been another of the weird vehicles to give them the slightest bit of hope.

"Maybe it was a mirage," she said, trying to fight the urge to give up and failing miserably. "Maybe it was just wishful thinking."

"I don't think so. If I could conjure up an image as real as that dork-mobile, I would be picturing my dear sweet Elena." He closed his eyes like he could actually see her.

Something about that statement made Bonnie cringe. Probably because she had been trying so hard to block out all thoughts of Elena and the others. It would have been easy to sit there and imagine Jeremy, wondering if he was too upset. He was perpetually cursed with dead girlfriends, and she hoped her death wouldn't cause him much pain. It felt like knives in her chest just to think about it.

"This is the weirdest thing ever," she said, changing the subject to the unbearable heat. "I'm not thirsty, but what I want more than anything right now is water."

Just like that, the ground dropped from beneath their feet. The air thinned, and they were splashing around in an ocean of churning gray water.

Bonnie sank. The icy temperature made her shiver as she clawed for what she thought was the surface. No matter how hard she kicked, she didn't feel any closer to her goal. Her lungs constricted. Chest tightened. She couldn't see her own hands in front of her face. A force tugged at her. Although she couldn't tell in what direction, she knew it was taking her somewhere she didn't want to go.

The burning in her chest became too much. Her mouth opened without her consent, gasping for air and choking down water. This couldn't be happening. She couldn't be dying again.

Then there was a hand around her arm. The touch felt no better than ice, but she melted into it, allowing it to drag her away from the frozen darkness.

Her head broke the surface. She coughed and gagged, blinking water out of her eyes and taking in the monochromatic setting. The water and the sky were nearly the same shade of gray. She could hardly tell where one ended and the other began.

An arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her afloat.

"Damon?" she gasped.

"Yeah, it's me."

His chest rose and fell against her arm as he breathed. They bobbed there in open water, Bonnie shivering. Her teeth chattering. It was odd to her that everything in this none life felt as real as anything she'd experienced in the life she left behind.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Haven't the slightest," he said, sounding out of breath, "but whatever it was, I wish it would un-happen."

She felt herself shrinking closer to him as her feet kicked away at nothing, and she wished it, too. That whatever had happened could un-happen. The sad empty road didn't seem so sad and empty anymore.

And then they were there. Back on the road. Sopping wet and slathered to the hot asphalt. Shock sent Bonnie into another fit of coughs. Damon patted her back as she choked up the last bit of water. He looked as confused as she felt.

They'd been on the road. Then they were drowning. Now, they were on the road again. It didn't make sense, and she couldn't help but wonder if any of it was real, but the pain in her chest when she'd been drowning felt as real and vivid as anything.

"I hate this place," she said, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

"Maybe you're not supposed to like it." Damon closed his eyes and laid back, right there on the asphalt with his fingers laced behind his head. "Maybe this is Hell. Did you ever think about that?"

She honestly hadn't. Hell wasn't a place for someone like her. Someone who had always done everything she could for everyone else. It wouldn't have been fair for her to die saving the world, only to wind up being tormented for all of eternity.

Then again, when was life ever fair?

Damon opened an eye to peek when she didn't respond and then pulled up onto a stiff arm after seeing the look on her face.

"You're really scared of that, aren't you?" he asked, searching her eyes with that intense gaze of his.

"What?"

"The chance that this might really be Hell. That there might not be a place in the clouds for the good ones. Not even for the likes of you."

She pushed her soggy hair back from her face and crossed her arms over her knees.

"Yes, Damon. I am terrified of the thought of spending forever and ever in Hell with no one to keep me company but you."

He could be so infuriating sometimes. That was why they had never been that close when they were alive. Because he couldn't keep his big mouth shut. Because he knew exactly how to push people's buttons and he enjoyed it.

Well, that and the fact that he was a certified serial killer. He had tried to kill her once and succeeded a second time, but she didn't really blame him for the showdown with Klaus.

"You shouldn't be," he said. "Terrified, I mean. If anyone deserves pearly gates and a golden digestive track [This is an allusion to _Paradise Lost_. I figure people might not get it, but a 170+ year-old vampire probably would have read _PL_ at some point, so it's in there], it's gotta be you."

She turned her head to look at him, eyebrows furrowed. Their faces were so close she could make out black flecks in his irises.

"That almost sounded like a compliment," she said.

"Yeah, well I'd suggest you get your hearing checked, but I doubt we'll be running into a physician any time soon."

He flashed to his feet and bent to offer her his hand. She stared at it for a moment. He was still wearing his daylight ring and it made her think of home. All of the people they might never see again. If the spell had gone any differently the night they'd died, she could have been stuck here with someone else. She remembered what she'd said to him.

_I'm sure there are a million other people we'd rather be with right now._

And he'd responded with, _A couple thousand at most._

As she put her hand in his, she thought for a moment that she could see that list of thousands shrinking.

**Chapter 1.3**

Bonnie wasn't going to say anything. She refused to. Even though the blurry darkness on the horizon still had yet to disappear. In fact, it was getting bigger. More distinct. If she could let herself believe it, the darkness was more than just a shadow. It was the outline of a city.

She was scared that the second she mentioned it, it would disappear and there would be nothing all over again. No shadows. No darkness. No nothing.

After walking beside Damon for so long, the thought of seeing someone other than him put a happy thrill in her chest where her heart had once been. People meant answers, and answers were all she could hope for.

"You see it, too. Don't you?" Damon asked, his words short and somehow broken.

The weakness in his voice concerned her. Since she'd woken up in this place, she'd been battling with the wind and low oxygen levels. Strange that the dead would need to breathe. Her muscles ached only half as much as her lungs, but she'd thought Damon was impervious to all of that. Vampire superhuman strength and what not.

She looked at him for the first time in what might have been hours, just to make sure he was okay. He met her gaze and gave a quick smile, small and mocking.

She looked away.

"Yes, I see it. I just didn't want to jinx it."

"It's still there." He stopped for a moment. "No harm done."

"For now. It looks about a million miles away."

"Twenty-two, actually. Twenty-five tops."

"So what do we do?"

She hated this. Feeling helpless. While she may have needed saving once or twice in her life, she had at least been able to come up with a plan and stick to it. For better or for worse. But she felt so out of place here. Unsure of where even her next step might lead her. Walking one moment, drowning the next. How could anyone plan under those circumstances?

"Unless you know the number of a taxi service," he said, "it looks like we're going to have to walk."

"Do you think you can make it that far?" she asked, certain that her legs and her lungs wouldn't last.

"No."

The simple answer fueled her anxiety. Snarky Damon was a comforting Damon. Serious Damon was terrifying.

Hot wind kicked up and almost bowled them over. Her hair and dress had mostly dried, and they fluttered around her.

"I'm starting to think that detour through the ocean wasn't all that bad," Damon said. "Which is worse? Pulling a _Titanic_ and freezing to death like good old Leo Dicaprio or choking to death on toxic air?"

She didn't have an answer. They couldn't die, she knew. They were already dead. But she figured they could still get _close_ to death without the dying part.

"Too bad whoever runs this place can't give us a happy medium," she mused. "Like keep the road but maybe add a little rain."

Thunder grumbled in the distance. A bolt of lightning cracked across the smog-orange sky and Bonnie's hand darted instinctively for Damon's, the same way it had the night they died. She was starting to think it had a mind of its own.

"You're not afraid of a little thunder, are you?" he asked.

Biting her lip, she dropped his hand and took a step away just as the first rain drops plopped onto the asphalt.

"What?" She tilted her head back as rain came crashing down around them, so loud it sounded like they were in the middle of a waterfall. It fell in sheets that created steam on the asphalt and began turning the sand hills into mud.

The rain made little work of her dress, and she was soaking wet for the second time. This time, she didn't mind it.

Damon squinted at her through the rapids. "You did this," he said.

She shook her head, no. She hadn't done anything half as powerful as creating rain, not since she'd lost her magic. It had to be a coincidence.

"It's either you or Ashton Kutcher waiting to jump out and tell us we've been punk'd, and it's not the last one because I killed Ashton Kutcher."

"You did not," she yelled over the rain and tried not to laugh.

"Probably not. Can't say I didn't try, but it was dark, and I'd had a few shots…bottles…of bourbon." He smiled at her and shook the water out of his hair. "This was all you."

Maybe he was right. Hadn't she said something about water before they'd found themselves in the ocean? And she'd been wishing for the road right before they'd poofed back. If she could make that stuff happen, why couldn't she….?

She closed her eyes, feeling cool water pooling around her feet, the dress clinging to her tired body. Then she thought about the city, the one on the horizon that was both a mystery and the biggest clue they had found yet about the new world.

"What are you do—?"

Damon didn't finish his question. When she opened her eyes, they were standing in the rain in the middle of the road, but there were no more gray hills. Instead, there were gray buildings, clustered together and scraping at the sky.

They had traveled miles in under a second, and although she didn't see another soul, she couldn't squash the exhilaration that came from knowing that she had made it happen.

"This was all me," she said, an old smile creeping across her face.

Damon only nodded before starting a slow clap in her honor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.1**

"What did you think about?" Damon asked her. "You know, in all the melodrama before we rode the cliché train right into the light."

The rain had stopped some time ago, and they had been walking for a while, not nearly as long as they'd been walking in the desert, but the fact that they still hadn't seen anyone else frustrated Bonnie to no end. Because not only were the streets clear of traffic and the sidewalks vacant, but there were no windows on the buildings. Flat sheets of metal blocked off doorways, and she was beginning to question whether they would ever find anyone else.

So she answered his question. Not because she particularly wanted to, but because she needed a distraction.

"I was thinking about my Grams," she said as they passed yet another storefront. Or what she thought were storefronts. Without windows, it was hard to tell. Whenever she spotted a sheet metal door with a blank sign hanging over it, "store" was the only explanation she could think of.

"Your Grams? Why not Jeremy the Boy Wonder? The thirteen year-old pre tween thing no longer do it for you?"

"Jeremy wasn't that much younger than me," she said, angry that she still felt the need to defend their age difference even though she would probably never see him again.

"Oh, but he was. Age isn't about years. It's about experiences, and you, Bonnie Bennett, have lived more than most."

"I guess the century-old vampire would know."

"The century-old vampire wrote the book that inspired the screen-play that turned into the movie," he said.

Smiling, she stared at him for a moment too long. It had been a while since she'd thought about killing him, and that, to her, felt like progress.

"So what did you think about when you realized it was all over?" she asked.

"I thought about Elena," he said and jumped down from the sidewalk. "And then I thought about Elena grieving, and then I thought about Stefan, and then I thought about Stefan and Elena _together_. Then that bright light couldn't come fast enough."

He was looking straight ahead where another line of buildings divided the street into a giant V, like a delta at the end of a river.

"You don't think the two of them will get together now, do you?" Bonnie asked. She hadn't given much thought to all of their My-Brother's-Girl drama, but as she listened to Damon talk about it, it was clear to her that the subject still caused him a lot of pain.

"I don't know, Judgy. Will anyone throw a funeral for my incinerated body? Will Jeremy finally start to grow facial hair? Will my brother step in and comfort my grieving girlfriend? We shall never know."

But Bonnie knew.

Elena loved Damon more than anything. So much so that she probably would have traded all of Mystic Falls if it meant she could swap places with Bonnie. She would have gladly wandered endless roads forever as long as Damon was beside her.

Something stopped Bonnie from saying that out loud, and she blamed it on her fatigue. They had made it to the literal fork in the road, and now, all she really wanted to do was sit down.

"I recognize this place," Damon said, staring up at the bottom side of the V-shaped building where there were giant white boards, blank and oddly out of place.

"You do?" she asked.

"You don't? It's Time's Square."

Her eyes narrowed, darting from building to building. She had only ever seen Times Square on television on New Year's Eve when she'd watch the parade with her father. Even watching it on a box in pajamas in her living room, it had looked more life-like than this. There weren't the trademark advertisements along the buildings, and the severe lack of people made it even less recognizable, but she guessed it could have been Times Square. Maybe in a post-apocalyptic future. Or a parallel world.

"I spent a lot of time in the big apple," he said, mostly to himself. "I'm the rot that turned it bad."

It almost sounded like Damon was scolding himself, which was new to Bonnie. She decided to ignore his comment and focus on one thing at a time.

"So is this some sort of weird nega-earth?" she asked.

Damon's brow furrowed, and he opened his mouth to speak, but a loud noise interrupted him. It sounded like a door closing, and then there was a loud buzzing, like a power generator had been switched on.

The white boards that had been blank crackled with static noise, and suddenly Damon and Bonnie were staring at her face multiplied several dozen times on the sides of the buildings and stretching toward the sky.

She gaped at her own wide, blinking eyes. The green in them was so vivid, though the rest of her seemed to have been washed out by the rain. Although her dark hair was chaotic and her dress looked more gray than white, she still looked like herself, which surprised her. She felt as if she'd lived a million days since her death, and she thought that it might have changed her somehow.

"Looks like they found us," Damon said, looking up at the mass of green eyes and brown skin.

She hated the way he said the words. It made it seem like there was something wrong with being found. Hadn't that been the point of all the walking? For someone to find them and tell them what the hell was going on? The weight in Damon's voice implied that there was a threat, and that they were vulnerable, but she was certain that they weren't in any danger, or maybe she was hoping.

"You're the Bennett witch," someone said, the voice deep but somehow melodic.

Bonnie turned to see who, or what, had spoken, but Damon was at her side, holding his arm out in front of her. Defending her?

"Who the hell are you?" Damon asked.

"I'm Samael," the voice spoke again, "and there's no need to be alarmed."

Bonnie peered around the black of Damon's shirt, and saw a tall, skinny man with dark hair and olive skin. He wore a bright red tank top and weird shorts that bunched around his knees.

"Actually, there is a need for alarm," Samael amended. "We shouldn't be out this time of day. I can explain better when we're safely indoors, but I do insist we hurry."

Damon was still tensed in front of her, but she stepped around his guarding arm so that Samael could see her, and she could fully see him.

"I'm Bonnie," she said in order to prevent him calling her the Bennett witch again. She wasn't a witch anymore, and even when she _was_ still a witch, it bugged her that it was the only thing people ever seemed to know about her.

"Bonnie." Samael approached her, a warm smile on his face. "We've been expecting you."

"A likely story," Damon said behind her. "I'm Damon Salvatore. Was anyone expecting me?"

Samael had shocking light brown eyes that reminded Bonnie of butterscotch or gold. Those eyes looked past her and zeroed in on Damon's face, then he looked away as if he were bored.

"You need to follow me," he said. "Apex will start soon, and I'd hate to explain to the elders that I'd lost you."

Bonnie didn't miss that he was talking specifically to her. She looked at Damon, who had saved her from drowning and kept her from going insane back in the desert. She reached for his hand and pulled him to her side.

"Okay," she said, "we're ready."

Wherever she was going, Damon was going, and she wanted Samael and anyone else to know that.

**Chapter 2.2**

Bonnie stood in the center of a large meeting hall. The room was circular with rows of seats that wound up toward the glass dome in the tall ceiling. Although the room could easily fit a hundred, only the first row of seats was occupied by Samael and seven other people he referred to as the elders. As if calling a group of people in shorts and tank tops who didn't look any older than Bonnie herself "elders" wasn't ominous at all.

"Have you made your decision?" a man in neon yellow with oddly sharp teeth asked. He was bald with dark brown eyes, and Bonnie was half sure that he was eldest of the elders. His chair was gold with red velvet accents. It was flashy and unattractive, and clearly a sign of his position. The others simply sat on the bench-like seat.

She thought about the question, and then about the answer.

"It's imperative that you make the right choice," Samael had said when they'd arrived inside a white-stone building that looked like a church with its steeple and arches. He had immediately pawned Damon off on someone else, a woman with blonde hair and flip flops, who Damon was all too eager to follow.

"Making the right choice is the only thing that will secure your place here," Samael had continued. They'd been standing in a hallway, one similar to many others he'd led her through.

"And where is here?" she'd asked.

"You'll know when you make the right choice." Then he'd opened two heavy wooden doors and led her into the meeting hall.

Now, she stood in front of these odd people, who had, so far, said very little, and all she knew was that her Grams had orchestrated this. When the Other Side was collapsing, the woman—along with every witch who had died since the beginning of time—had worked their magic one last time to secure Bonnie's transition from the human realm to this new place. She still did not know its name, nor did she know exactly how different it was from the world she'd left behind.

"If I say yes—" she started.

"We'll take it away," a woman said, her tone and look very serious. "Every memory of your past will feel like nothing but a dream, and this will be your home. The only home you've ever known."

Bonnie's eyes narrowed, and she took an unconscious step backward. That was the part that got to her. Her past feeling like a dream? It might have hurt her to think about her life on earth and the fact that she could never return, but she wasn't sure she wanted to forget.

"What about Damon?"

None of the elders flinched at the mention of his name. If the choice was so important, why didn't Damon have to make it, too?

"This is what Sheila wanted," Samael spoke up when he noticed Bonnie hesitating. "She was the mastermind behind all of this so that you could find peace here. She knew that this was as close to living as you could come now. There are no real alternatives."

It was true that her Grams had wanted her to find peace, but Bonnie didn't think it would come at the price of leaving behind her old life for good, forgetting that it ever existed. That to her seemed worse than death.

But if this was what her Grams wanted….

Bonnie had ignored her grandmother's wishes before in the past, pushing her magic too far, using Expression. Nothing good ever came from ignoring the woman's advice.

"Promise that Damon can stay, too." She knew that her Grams hadn't mentioned 176-year-old narcissistic blood-addicted vampire when she'd contrived a plan to save her, but this was the deal breaker. Damon belonged to her best friend, and even though she knew he would never see Elena again, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she knew anything bad ever happened to him.

The man in the ugly chair fixed his posture and stared at her coolly.

"Yes, of course. Your friend Damon will come to no harm at our hands. We're already planning a meeting for him where he'll have a choice to make as well. You have nothing to worry about."

His reassurances quieted the last bit of resistance inside her head. Bonnie's Grams wanted her to find peace. The woman must have known that there was no way she ever would if she spent all of her time wondering about Jeremy and when—not if because he was young, and it would happen—he would move on and find another girlfriend. Hopefully, one who would not die. There was no one Bonnie could move on with. Her only hope was to forget how much she'd loved him, and how much he'd loved her.

"Okay," she said. "My choice is yes. I want to stay."

Samael smiled wide. All seven elders, minus the one in the chair, moved to their feet and hugged her, wrapping her in their arms and heady floral scents that reminded her of her Gram's garden. The smells immediately put her at ease.

Then the bald one stood from his chair. He had something in his hand as he walked toward her. A needle?

The other elders tightened their hold on her.

"I'm Ben," he said. "The oldest soul here."

Someone pulled on her wrist, and Ben slid the needle into her arm. It hurt as much as any shot ever had. When he pulled it out, there was no blood. Only a small drop of clear solution that rolled to her elbow and dropped on the marble beneath their feet.

Bonnie swayed slightly, but the arms held her tight.

"Welcome to Elysium," Ben said, "or as we like to call it, Heaven."

**Chapter 2.3**

Each hall inside The Pemberly, looked much the same. Red carpet, soft pink walls lined with gold floor molding, and framed portraits of moving landscapes.

Bonnie paused in front of one of the frames. The scene: churning gray waves, crashing against rocks. It made her think about the ocean where Damon had saved her, and then the nagging in her chest grew worse.

She'd woken up after the weird ceremony in a room, her room. Her initials were embroidered in the fluffy pillows and spelled out in the cream marble floors. She'd felt different, lighter. Not as heavy as she'd felt when she was drowning in the ocean. But the thought of the ocean always brought her back to dark hair and blue eyes and mocking smiles. She would see Damon's face and her heart would start pounding, and she knew that nothing in Elysium would feel quite right until she found him.

So his face haunted her as Samael and another girl, Paula, explained to Bonnie that she could only go outside after dark or risk oblivion when Apex started. She wouldn't die, she would just evaporate. There would be nothing left of her. Not even a trace.

Paula showed Bonnie how to access the building directory, and how to pull the shutters open on the long windows that lined her bedroom wall. She had to be careful not to leave them opened during Apex which was when the day was brightest. Paula had even taken the time to explain to Bonnie why she didn't need to eat, but no one—not Paula, not Samael, and not Ben—had explained to her how she had managed to blink herself from place to place. And wondering about that only made her wonder more about Damon.

Paula eventually left Bonnie alone so she could get cleaned up. She couldn't pass up the chance for a shower, nor could she pass up the chance to stare at the mirror when she caught a glimpse of herself. Her hair had grown back, inexplicably, falling in waves down to her shoulders. There was a greenish bruise where Ben had stuck her with the needle. Her head was a little fuzzy, but she was still herself. Nothing had changed.

Now, she was following the instructions she'd memorized from the directory in order to find Damon.

When she came to the room, the door gaped. Inside, a fire burned in the fireplace and Damon sat with his leg draped over the arm of a chair. For a second, she thought she could remember something. Another grander fireplace. Damon pacing in front of it. But the thought slipped away.

"Nice of you to show up," he said without looking at her.

She felt a weird relief to hear his voice. It wasn't familiar to her because nothing was familiar to her, but a voice meant that the face in her head was real. For a moment, she thought she'd been imagining him.

"Why is it so dark in here?" she asked, sitting in the chair beside his. Other than the fire and light spilling in from the hallway, the room was a den of shadows. It made her shiver, and she realized that the fireplace wasn't giving off any heat.

"Is it dark?" he asked. "I didn't notice."

She may not have recognized his voice, but she recognized the tone. Sadness.

Suddenly uncomfortable, she stood and walked around the room. There were bookshelves with lots of books and globes and it all looked so…old.

"Something's changed," she said, running a hand along the leather bindings of books. "They asked me to make a choice, and I did."

Damon flashed to her side. His eyes pierced hers through the darkness, and she felt her breath catch in her throat.

"You're being vague, like every other space case I have had the displeasure of meeting today, which—surprise!—concerns me. What changed? What choice?"

Bonnie explained to him what the elders had said, and what Samael had said about finding peace. That reminded her that she had bargained for Damon's safety as long as he was willing to make the same choice she had. That fact didn't bring him the same serenity that it had brought her.

"So you're telling me that you have no memory of Mystic Falls?" he asked, baring his ultra-white teeth.

She shook her head, no.

"No Jeremy, no Grams, no Elena, Caroline? _Elena_? You've only saved her life half a million times."

The names did not sound familiar.

"When I woke up, you were the only thing I could remember before coming here." She didn't understand his anger. She was just so happy that he was safe. So she reached for his hand. He pulled it away, but she reached for it a second time, and this time he let their hands hang, intertwined, between them.

"It's okay," she said. "This is Elysium, Damon. We're in Heaven. We don't have to worry about anything ever again."

His jaw tightened. Light from the fire danced in his dark eyes as he glared at her.

"What the hell have they done to you, Judgy?"

She frowned at the anger in his voice, and squeezed his hand tighter.

"Do you trust me?"

This, to her, was a given. She knew that she trusted him. More than she trusted anyone in Elysium. If he felt even an ounce of that for her, then there was no way he would question her decision.

"Not like I have much of a choice," he said, "but believe it or not, yeah, I do. I have for a while."

"Then you have to believe me. This is good. It's great." She was smiling harder than she needed to, hoping to erase the sadness from his expression or at least the worry lines from his forehead. With him looking at her like that, it made her feel a weird kind of pain. A pain she didn't altogether understand.

"Do me a favor? Don't go making any more _choices_ without me. I trust you, no one else. We're not in Kansas anymore."

"Is that where we're from, Kansas?" Although she couldn't remember anything before Elysium, she was certain that there _had_ been something before. She just didn't know what.

Damon surprised her by laughing. He pulled his hand away a final time and turned back to the fire.

"Then again, an amnesiac former witch might not be all that bad. You're funnier at least."

A former witch? It sounded familiar, but she couldn't focus on that because there was a voice screaming inside of her head telling her that she was offended.

"Well, Damon, you were never funny at all," she said, unsure of whether or not that was true, only that it seemed to fit. "Follow me. I know where you can get cleaned up."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3.1**

Bonnie showed Damon how to work the complicated fixtures in her bathroom, and then she left him alone so he could use the shower. It had crazy shower heads in all the walls so that the water hit at all angles.

"It's like being in a dishwasher," Damon shouted right before she closed the giant, frost-glass door behind her.

She tried to fight her smile as she moved to her closet, and then stopped herself. Why _shouldn't_ she smile? She had found Damon, and she had found her peace. There were no more roadblocks standing between her and happiness, and that felt more foreign to her than anything. The weightlessness that came with not having to worry.

All of the clothes in her closet were white. She wasn't sure why. Every other person she'd met wore neon summer colors, but she wasn't going to complain. She picked out a simple white dress to wear to the party the elders were throwing in her honor. It was shorter than the dress she'd worn in the desert, but it had sleeves and silver buttons trailing down the back.

Something chirped in her room. She peeked out the closet door. Her bed sat on the far wall closer to the windows, which she was still afraid to open. There was a small blue loveseat in front of what Samael and Paula called a Screening Board. The Boards linked the entire building to the announcement system, and they were supposed to chime to announce Apex and other important events.

Bonnie figured that the Board had chirped to announce that it was after dark, and so it was safe to go outside.

Until it chirped again.

She took her dress and spread it along the foot of her bed, staring up at the large white rectangle, suspended from the brown wall. The screen was covered in crackling white noise, like the advertising boards in Times Square had been before they'd all zeroed in on her face.

"Bonnie," she heard Damon say. Except the shower was still going, and the bathroom door was still closed, and his voice had come from the Board.

"_Bonnie_," he said, singing it this time.

Suddenly, she could make out a face behind the static. She gasped and backed against her bed, plopping on her butt.

"I found her," Damon said as the screen cleared. There was Damon in dark pants and a button down with his hair grown out and scruff along his jaw. He was sitting on a brown swede couch in a living room with modern glass and chrome accents. She could see the cherry wood cabinets of a kitchen behind him.

"You mean you found me," another voice said. And then she was in the shot. A woman with her dark hair long and straight. She wore a t-shirt and jeans, and she was very obviously pregnant. She was also Bonnie Bennett.

"What's going on?" Bonnie, the real Bonnie, asked. The two people on her Screening Board weren't real. They couldn't be. How could Bonnie be here, in Elysium, and there, wherever there was? How could she be pregnant?

"No, see," Damon said to the Other Bonnie, staring at her with all seriousness. "I am completely and unchangeably in love with you." There was a pause where he continued to stare at her, and then he faced forward looking right at the Real Bonnie. "Her, not so much," he said.

"She is me, Damon," the Other Bonnie insisted.

"That's where you're wrong. She's a _version_ of you, but this version is all doe-eyed and confused and she's clearly been brainwashed by a cult."

"You noticed it, too," she said, rubbing her huge stomach with concern in her green eyes. "She's made her choice. And it's the wrong one."

The wrong choice? Was she talking about the decision to stay in Elysium? Bonnie had only just made the choice, and she wasn't sure why it would be wrong.

"I'm not surprised," Damon said, grabbing a glass of brown liquid from the coffee table. "You're always impulsive when you think you believe in something."

The screen flickered. The image of Other Bonnie and Other Damon became distorted but not enough for Real Bonnie to miss her whack him with a throw pillow.

"Talk quick," he said when the screen was clear again. "The connection won't last long."

Holding her stomach, Other Bonnie shifted to the edge of the couch. Real Bonnie couldn't deny that the woman looked exactly like her, and she even had the same wide-eyed look when she wanted to be serious. But she was different. Older? How could she be older? No one ages in death.

"We picked the wrong time to listen to Grams," Other Bonnie said. "It's a long, long story, but I'm you from the future. You should know that a lot happens between now and then."

Bonnie noticed how close Damon was sitting to Other Bonnie. How he stared at her when she talked. He'd said he was _in love_ with her. That meant that somewhere in the future, the two of them were together.

She could hear the shower shut off in the bathroom, and her heart jumped in her chest. Real Damon was in the next room, oblivious to what was happening with the Screening Board. She was staring at a window into their future, and she wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about it.

"You have to get out of Elysium," Other Bonnie said.

"How?" Bonnie shot back, half-listening to Damon's footsteps. Her eyes flashed to the door and she could see his shadow behind the frosted glass.

There was static noise. The connection on the Screening Board was failing. The woman continued to talk, but Real Bonnie could only hear her in patches. She caught three words—mountains, condensation, and death. Nothing that made any sense at all. Then the screen went blank.

Real Bonnie was now the only Bonnie.

Blinking in confusion, she pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed her chin into them.

"What am I supposed to wear?" Damon came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist while he dried his hair with another. "Not that I'm opposed to the whole Chippendales look, I just wouldn't want to make anyone jealous."

Bonnie looked from his blue eyes to his dripping abs. Then she closed her eyes, wishing that when the screen had gone blank, it had taken him with it.

**Chapter 3.2**

Bonnie chose not to tell him. What she'd witnessed on her Screening Board—her pregnant future self demanding she leave Elysium, future Damon declaring his love for her—these things would remain her secret until she could figure out what to do about them.

For now, she and Damon would attend the party together, pretending that everything was normal even though she now questioned the motives of everyone else they came across.

"My confidence has never been lower." Damon stood beside her in front of the mirror. She'd put in a request for his clothing, and Paula had dropped a box off an hour before. Now, he stood in skinny shorts and a striped tank top. "I look stupid. I hate looking stupid."

Bonnie shook her head to make him feel better but she couldn't stop laughing.

"Not stupid," she said between laughs. "Just…pale."

His long arms and legs were so white compared to the tan and orange that composed his outfit.

"I'm a winter. It takes a certain amount of black to do these eyes justice," he said, staring down at her with the full intensity of his baby blues.

She took a breath, remembering future Damon's words. _Completely and unchangeably_.

"The warm colors suit you," she said. "They make you look a little less dead."

"I've been a walking corpse for 150 years, and I have never felt deader."

"What do you mean?" She ducked into her closet to find shoes and to put as much distance between herself and Damon as possible.

"What do _you_ mean?" he asked, probably still agonizing over his appearance in the mirror.

"That thing about being a walking corpse." She was bent over several rows of shoes, skimming for a pair she liked.

Suddenly, Damon was blocking the entrance with his hands on either side of the frame and a wicked smile on his face.

"So you've forgotten everything."

"It was the price of staying."

_And the wrong choice to make, apparently._

"Humor me a bit and tell me what you do remember because I am dying to know."

She held a pair of strappy heels to her chest and tried to think. According to the elders, she wasn't supposed to remember anything other than Elysium. Part of her wondered if she was supposed to remember Damon, but she did, and she held onto that because it was the only thing that made even a tiny bit of sense.

_Mountains, condensation, death._

The words were gibberish, but they were the last ones her future self had spoken.

Bonnie took a step toward Damon before she said anything.

"I remember the simple stuff. I am Bonnie Bennett, and you are Damon Salvatore. I remember that we died, and now, we're here. Together."

"Nothing else?" he asked, eyebrow quirked.

"Everything before the desert is like the first chapter in a book that got ripped out before I could read it, and even the part after that is blurry at times. I try to guess most stuff. Like I figure we probably weren't that close before."

"And why would you think that?"

_Because you're so sarcastic all of the time. Because you're clearly miserable, but you're pretending that everything is fine. Because you won't tell me anything unless it's veiled in dry humor._

She shrugged and sat in the lone chair in the corner, undoing the buckle of a shoe.

"Am I wrong?" she asked, waiting for him to either confirm or deny. When he did neither, she continued, "I just have this feeling like there are blank spaces in my head and I'm waiting for someone to fill them."

Damon crossed his arms and his cynical grin deepened. "Then this should be fun."

Outside was different after dark. For one thing, Bonnie could breathe. Another, the sky was a velvety shade of purple. Plush grass covered everything and made her regret wearing shoes. As more and more people introduced themselves, she found herself wishing she could run around barefoot, toes wriggling against the earth.

"You're lying," Bonnie said as Damon led her in a two-step waltz. "Wait, explain it to me again."

"I'm a vampire." He spun her around in a quick circle. "Or I was a vampire. That means I thirsted for human blood, sucked the life right out of them. It was easier than it sounds."

They continued to dance with his hand on the small of her back and her arms wrapped around his neck. Dancing like this was the only thing that kept other people from asking her questions. The same questions over and over again. _Did she like Elysium? Where did she get her dress? What was so special about her?_ Apparently, the elders did not pay as much attention to the other inhabitants of their world.

Even though the music was fast-paced, Damon refused to do any of the strange thrashing the other party attendants were passing off as dancing. Under the flashing, blinking lights, the others looked like they were having seizures, and that was somehow scarier to Bonnie than being in the arms of a killer.

"So you murdered people, then?" she asked.

"Murder is such a unilateral word. Vampirism is nothing if not multifaceted. Planet earth is an ecosystem, and I was at the top of the food chain."

"Why would you tell me this?" she asked as he angled her away from another couple, thrashing beside them. "Why is that the first thing you tell me about our old life? Are you trying to scare me?"

"That depends." His eyes flashed. "Is it working?"

_There he goes again_, she thought. Using words as smoke signals. Fanning flames to hide what was really bothering him. She refused to let him get off that easily. She wouldn't trust him if he couldn't be honest with her.

"You didn't have many friends," she said.

"Is that a question?"

"No. You hide behind your words, and I bet you hid behind the vampire thing, too. Did you use it like a shield to keep people from getting too close?"

"Getting too close? You mean like this?" He tightened his hold on her waist. Her breath left in a loud whoosh as she felt his chest pressed firmly against hers.

They _were_ close. So close she couldn't resist noticing the jarring contrast between the shades of their skin. One of his fingers trailed along the buttons on the back of her dress, and for a second, she thought her heart had started to beat again.

Still, she stared into his eyes and pretended to be unaffected.

"You don't fool me. I can see straight through you."

"Now, see that," he said, his face inches from her own, "is the part that should scare you."

"Mind if I cut in?" Samael had appeared in Bonnie's line of sight and was standing with his arms behind his back. "The elders are dying to get to know you better."

Damon turned them around so that he was staring at Samael over Bonnie's head.

"Yes, I mind."

"No, it's fine."

The two spoke simultaneously and then glared at each other. Bonnie broke the stand-off first.

"I'll be all ears when you're ready to say something real." Then she extricated herself from his arms and turned to follow Samael.

**Chapter 3.3**

The elders sat at the head of the clearing. They watched with straight faces while everyone else danced, flitting across the perfect grass and adding a laugh track to the busy music.

Bonnie watched everyone as Samael led her through the crowd. Hundreds of happy smiling faces. Were they people like her? If Elysium really was Heaven, then that meant they had died before in another dimension and then somehow wound up here. But if it _was_ Heaven, why would it be important for Bonnie to get out? Death was one of the last words she'd been able to hear on the Screening Board, and she couldn't figure out why it would still be a threat.

Ben moved from his seat as Bonnie approached with Samael. He was barefoot, wearing a long red tunic and tights. Bonnie thought about how Damon would look in the outfit and couldn't stop herself from laughing.

"Glad to see you're enjoying yourself," Ben said.

"Yeah," Bonnie said, looking up at the purple bruise of sky above them to stop her giggles. "It's really beautiful here."

"Of course it is." He stared at her a moment through narrowed eyes and then turned to Samael. "You're free to go."

Samael nodded so hard he almost bowed. To the other elders he placed a hand over his heart. They dismissed him with a simultaneous head bob, and then he was gone.

Now practically alone with the elders, Bonnie felt a pang at her core. She shifted uncomfortably in her heels and waited for Ben to tell her why he wanted to see her, no longer believing that he would ask the same questions as everyone else. Maybe because she was certain he already knew the answers.

"Walk with me, Bonnie. The darkness is too sweet to sit still."

Ben extended his arm for her to take. She stared into his eyes. They were darker than the night, and any desire to reject him fizzled away as his lips quirked into an anticipating smile.

She linked her arm with his, and once again, she was moving through the mass of dancing bodies. This time the eyes were on her.

"Everyone's staring," she said. "I believe that has something to do with you."

Ben shrugged. "I'm an elder. I make the laws. I enforce them with an iron fist. It makes them curious."

"So that's what sets you apart? You make the laws?"

"That among other things."

The crowd broke around them and she could see Damon, standing completely still and staring back at her. Someone approached him. A girl with wavy hair and a short flower dress. They exchanged words and then she grabbed his hand, goading him to dance. Eventually, he gave in, twirling her and dipping her once. Bonnie wished it was _that_ easy to get him to be honest.

"And what do the others have to be curious about?" she asked, turning her attention back to Ben, who had yet to look away from her.

"I'm an elder. That's what makes me different. Secrets are what sets me apart. There are some things no one needs to know, but that doesn't stop them from asking questions."

"I'd imagine not. I have enough questions myself."

"Care to share them with me?"

Sharing them were the whole reason she brought them up. She was more confused than ever, and she figured the best way to fix that was to get her answers from the top of hierarchy. Ben was the leader of the elders. If he didn't have her answers, no one did.

"I just wonder why I'm here," she said and Ben nodded.

"That's the question that plagues existence. In this universe and the next. When you've been around long enough, you know better than to bother with it." He positioned himself in front of her, the serious look in his eyes absolute. "You're here because you need to be. You're here because you _want_ to be, and you're not the only one. After the expansion, everyone will be dying to get here."

"The expansion?"

"Elysium is growing, branching out and developing into its own plane. You and your friend are just in time for the show."

The way his expression changed when he mentioned Damon, her friend, put Bonnie even more on edge.

"So what happens to us now?" she asked, desperate for something concrete she could hold onto. "Besides watching this place get bigger?"

"Now, you relax and trust that everything is under control." He patted her shoulder and nodded goodbye. She watched him walk away, standing alone and feeling nothing at all like the guest of honor.

After the celebration had ended, she and Damon returned to her room because no one was going out of their way to give Damon a room of his own.

"I need a drink," he said, collapsing sideways onto the couch.

"Is that a reference to your vampire blood thirst?" Bonnie closed the door and searched for a lock. There wasn't one, and that only added to her uneasiness.

"My vampire blood thirst disappeared the moment I died. I need alcohol, my other addiction. You wouldn't happen to be able to think me up a glass of bourbon, would you?"

Bonnie sat at the foot of her bed and began to remove her shoes.

"I don't know how I moved us from place to place earlier, but I don't think I can make things appear that don't exist. No one needs to eat or drink here, so good luck finding a drink that will fry your non-existent liver."

"You remember how alcohol works?" he asked, staring at her over the back of the couch.

"I told you. I remember the simple things." She grabbed her shoes by the straps and moved toward the closet. "By the way, I think we should find a way to do some experiments."

"What kind of experiments?" he asked.

"We need to know how my…power works," she said, unsure of what else to call it. "If it has limitations and if those limitations can be stretched. I think we might need it. Soon."

"And why do you think that?" he asked, appearing at the closet door as she searched for something to sleep in. "My hearing isn't what it used to be, but it's good enough. Bald guy in a dress seemed to think we didn't have anything to worry about and yet those worry lines in your forehead are deeper than the Grand Canyon. There something you're not telling me?"

She looked at him. His dark hair was as wild and erratic as his crazy eyes, and he was waiting for a response. She still wasn't sure what to make of the message from her future self and she sure as hell wasn't sure if she could save herself and Damon if it came to that. Turning her back to him, she pulled a shirt from a drawer and said, "Not nearly as much as you're not telling me." And she left it at that.

The day had seemed to drag on forever, but finally, she was in a bed. All of the lights in her room were out. She lay on her back, staring up at the domed ceiling in the dark. Damon was sprawled across her couch, awake. She didn't know how she was sure of that, only that she was. She felt as if she could feel his breath in the dark, but with him on the other side of the room, she knew that couldn't have been possible.

She sank deeper into the mass of pillows. Her eyes grew heavier and heavier by the second, and she was suddenly very thankful that she could still sleep.

When she woke up, she was screaming.

"Bonnie?" she could feel Damon standing over her, but it was dark and every nerve in her body seared with pain is if she were being burned alive.

Another cry ripped from her throat. She rocked onto her side, clutching her stomach. She wasn't sure what part of her body hurt worse. The skin on her back was ripping apart, it felt like something was clawing at her from the inside, and her head. Her head was _exploding_.

The lights came on. Damon was sitting beside her on the bed, staring down at her. His eyes intense but unsure.

"I need you to tell me what's going on." His voice was terribly calm compared to Bonnie's gut-wrenching screams. He leaned over her, trying to catch her gaze. "Hey, hey. Look at me."

Her eyes went everywhere. Focusing too long on any one thing only made it harder to ignore the pain.

"My back," she gasped and then buried her face in a pillow. Suppressing the next round of screams.

"Alright, Bennett. Bear with me because this is about to get a little personal."

With quick hands he turned her on her stomach and winced when it caused her to cry louder. On the fringes of her agony, she could feel his hands under her shirt, cool to the touch. Then the shirt was ripping. She bit down on a pillow as his fingers trailed lightly over the hot skin of her back.

"Would you look at that?" he said. She would have asked him what he meant if his fingers hadn't pressed down too hard. Her vision turned red and she couldn't stop sobbing.

Damon shifted from the bed and squatted on the floor so that he was at eye level with her. Bonnie could barely make out his face, but through the haze of colors surrounding her were his eyes. They were steady, and she used them as a means for steadying herself, preparing for what he had to tell her.

"It'll be fine," he said, brushing her hair out of her face like he was afraid to touch her again for fear it might cause her more pain. "I know right now it feels like your entire body is trying to implode, but I've seen this before. You're growing wings."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4.1**

She felt like she'd been screaming forever. Clawing at the mattress, clenching her teeth, and crying for relief that never came.

Damon had pulled a chair to her bedside, having told her that there was nothing he could do to help the pain. He'd watched it happen before. There were apparently faeries on earth if one knew where to look for them. He'd said that the faeries deemed growing wings the only pain worse than giving birth.

Despite his resolve that he could be of no help, he still tried to distract her with stories from their old lives. How she had saved the town they lived in and the people they cared about.

"Don't let it go to your head or anything," he said, "but you're the only one I ever trusted enough to do it."

He kept saying stuff like that. Complimenting her strength and bravery. If there was any sarcasm behind his words, she was too delirious with pain to detect it. Even so, she had convinced herself that he was only saying those things to make her feel better. The kicker came when he called her the guardian angel of Mystic Falls. "And now the angel is getting her wings," he'd said. She'd wanted to ask him when he'd turned sensitive and if he was being impersonated, but something snapped near her spine and she cried out instead.

Whenever she screamed, Damon's face went blank. There was no worry or concern. She thought she saw his jaw clench once. Other than that, he let nothing through.

"Tell me something real," she said during one of the lulls when the pain was more bearable. She didn't want to hear any bull about her being a hero. If he really believed that, he wouldn't have needed her to be reduced to screams for him to say it.

He leaned forward in his chair, watching her face. The blue in his eyes gave away nothing.

"We had a lot in common, you and me. Even before we rode off into the sunset together. Emotionally unavailable father. Disappearing mother. And a woman who opened our eyes to the world. You had your Grams, and I had Katherine Pierce."

She wanted to recognize the names. She thought the pain might be more bearable if she could. Only the thing about her Grams rang even the smallest bell. She knew she had given up her memory because she thought it was what the woman had wanted, and she knew that meant she must have loved and trusted her, but her future self said that listening to Grams had been wrong. Somewhere, sadness warred with the pain inside her. Another tear escaped and pooled on her cheek.

For a moment, Bonnie thought she saw Damon's calm mask break, but he continued.

"Katherine introduced me to the world of magic and wonder. She made me love her, compelled my brother, turned us both into a vampires, kept my heart like trinket for 150 years when she was supposed to be locked in a tomb, and then she broke it right in front of me. That real enough for you, Bennett?"

A bell rang, so heavy it sounded like a gong. Someone was at the door.

"Answer it," Bonnie said, gasping and trying not to succumb to more tears.

"Oh answer the door so one of the zombie herd can tell me what I already know? You're growing wings and you're as stubborn as ever. I got it covered."

Bonnie tried to sit up, pulling a blanket with her to cover her chest. With gentle, but firm, hands, Damon pushed her back onto the mattress.

"We have to let them in," she said, blinking up at him. "They can't know that anything is wrong."

"Okay, again, what aren't you telling me?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head. She was in no mood to explain what she knew, and they didn't have time. It wasn't like the door had a lock anyway. Whoever was in the hall could come in anytime they wanted. She couldn't be writhing in agony when they did.

After a breath, she looked him in the eyes and tried to plead without words. "Help me."

His nose wrinkled slightly the way it did when he was thinking about something. Then he was gone in a flash, returning not a breath later with a white silk robe, which he helped her into.

He propped her up by the door and stood behind the doorjamb. "You have a minute. Send whoever it is away."

She nodded, in no condition to argue.

When she opened the door, Samael was standing in the hall with his curls pushed back and a heavy book in his arms.

"Ben wanted you to have this. Read it in your spare time and then arrange a meeting with him once you're done. Is everything alright?" His bushy eyebrows were furrowed as he took her in.

Bonnie tried not to lean on the door so much. She knew that while the robe could hide what was happening to her back, it couldn't hide her face or her hair. She must have looked terrible.

"Everything is fine. Thank you for asking!" Her voice spiked at the end after another stabbing pain.

"Get rid of him," Damon mouthed.

She took the large brown book from Samael's hands and had to lean back to compensate for the added weight. Why was it so heavy?

"I'll read this as soon as I can," she said, trying to smile.

Samael didn't look convinced but he placed a hand over his heart and bow/nodded.

"Very well. I'll see you next hallow."

Bonnie knew that hallow was what they called the night, and it was the only time that anything ever happened. Everyone was confined to the buildings during the day, or epoch.

"Right. Great." As soon as she closed the door, her legs gave out. Damon caught her and whisked her back to the bed. When she was lying down again, he didn't pull away, opting to search her eyes instead.

"Why are you always so stupid?" he asked.

Her forehead furrowed. "I don't know what you mean."

"The girl who died only to die again. You never did a single selfish thing in your whole life, and now that you're dead, you still want to play nice," he practically spit the words at her, but he was close and all she felt was his breath. "Try being selfish. You might like it, or at least survive it."

They were almost chest to chest, and she couldn't look anywhere but in his eyes.

"Maybe selfish worked before, Damon, but I don't see it doing us any good right now."

"There it is. Bonnie Bennett's creed. Us, we, you, but never me." He sneered and stood tall above her. Another moment passed and he turned away.

She curled onto her side to get the pressure off her back, figuring that this was what he really thought of her. No hero or angel. She was too stupid to be selfish and too stubborn to ever try.

**Chapter 4.2**

The first wing emerged a while later. Bonnie was too exhausted to try and gage the time. Besides, there was a long, jagged, featherless wing sticking out of her back. It was large enough to cover her, and it seemed to have a mind of its own. Twitching and sometimes even flapping without her consent. She'd screamed when she first saw it. It was so…ugly. She knew now probably wasn't the time to think about her appearance, but _how_ was she supposed to walk around with two of those things sticking out of her? She felt like a turkey or another equally hideous bird that had been plucked and primed for a feast.

At least Damon wasn't seeing her like this. Since he turned away from her, she hadn't heard anything more from him. It wouldn't have surprised her if he'd left the room during one of her shouting fits.

She wanted to ask him how his experiences with faery wings compared to this. How long it normally lasted. If the faeries looked this terrible, too.

Instead, she cried silently into her pillow, trying to be strong. She had managed to remain quiet for a while, but then the other wing started trying to force its way out.

She screamed for Damon because she didn't have anyone else to call. Her new wing beat violently, turning the room into a whirlwind. Then she blacked out from the pain.

When Bonnie came to, he had returned to the chair at her side with the book Samael had given her in his hands. Behind him, the metal shutters had been pulled up on the wall of windows, revealing the brightening sky. The view was clear. No buildings or any semblance of a city in sight. Just lots of rolling hills.

"It's not over yet," she said, afraid that the truth of the words might break her. She was sure she had never experienced anything half as painful in her life. If she had, she knew that there was nothing in Elysium or anywhere else that could wipe away the memory. The pain was unforgettable.

"Just keep breathing," Damon said, turning a page. "It doesn't get any easier from here."

She squeezed her eyes tight, wanting so badly for the pain to end.

"I can't take it," she whimpered.

"Don't be stupid," he said, his voice stern. "Before we died, you were the anchor to the Other Side. You felt the deaths of every supernatural creature who came your way. Give yourself some credit."

She wanted the words to bring her strength, as she was sure he'd intended them to, but those weren't her memories anymore. They might as well have happened to someone else.

"Damon," she said, taking a breath so she could say the words exactly right, "Do not call me stupid again."

"Or what, Little Birdy," he said with half a smile. "You gonna beat me to death with your ugly wing?"

She shot up and sat before him, hunched over. Her hair shadowing her face and covering her chest and her giant wing waving beside her.

"Maybe you haven't noticed but no one here has expressed even the slightest concern for you since we arrived. You're here because I want you to be. If I told them I wanted you gone, you would be."

Her breaths became even more labored, though it felt good to sit up after lying for so long. And having the wing didn't feel all that bad either. It was ugly, yes, but it made her feel powerful. It made beating Damon to death seem like a very real and obtainable option.

Despite the threat, Damon's smile didn't falter.

"There you go, Birdy. Get selfish."

"I'm not being selfish, Damon." She didn't know how to tell him that she wanted him, no needed him, there. When he wasn't being an ass, he was halfway comforting. "If I get rid of you, it'll be for vengeance."

"Careful, you're starting to sound like me."

"I don't want to be anything like you."

"Like me, around me, under me." His eyebrows wagged suggestively and went back to reading.

Bonnie tried to think of something else to say, but the pain spiked again and she slumped forward, clutching the edge of the bed. She closed her eyes to focus on her breathing, and when she opened them, he was staring at her. The cynicism gone from his sharp features.

"See there," he said. "You can handle anything."

Blinking, she wondered if that had been his plan all along. Get her riled up so she'd forget how exhausted she was. She had to admit, it'd worked, and she wondered about something.

"Katherine Pierce must have been a hell of a woman to get you to love her."

"No, I was just too weak of a target."

Her brow furrowed. As cruel as he was sometimes to her, she noticed that he was even crueler to himself. At least when he'd said the mean things about her, there was always a flash in his eyes that let her know that they were nothing but the words of a cynic, but when he talked about himself, there was nothing in his eyes but darkness. No mocking edge in his voice. She could tell he believed his words.

"Maybe you should give yourself more credit," she said.

His lips twitched like he wanted to argue, but he dropped his gaze to the pages in front of him.

"This book is turning into a must read," he said. "I'd give it two thumbs up but only if I could rip them off of Sammy Sam and his bald headed mistress."

"What does it say?" she asked, ignoring the comments about Samael and Ben.

"Don't worry about it."

Rolling her eyes, she reached for the book, but he pulled it to his chest and clicked his teeth at her.

"No, no, no. Not while you look like the creature that crawled out of the deep. I'll tell you about it when you do something with your hair and that monstrous thing that keeps waving at me."

"I don't get you," she said through clenched teeth.

"Well, you never asked nicely."

She shook her head. "I mean are you on my side or not? Do you want to help me or do you just want to make me feel bad about myself?"

"Bonnie Bennett," he said, straightening in his chair, "of course I want to make you feel bad about yourself. But you're my friend and I like you and I want to help you." He cocked his head to the side, staring south of her face. "Plus, your tits are practically majestic."

She had straightened her back while he'd been talking to her, and her hair was no longer covering her chest. The second she realized this, her wing snapped in front of her, leaving nothing exposed but her eyes.

Damon smiled. "Those wings are coming in handy already."

**Chapter 4.3**

Bonnie slept for a long time after her second wing emerged. She woke up blinking at the scene outside her windows. The brilliant orange sky, so bright and vivid and endless.

The pain had subsided some time ago, but her body still ached and she thought for a moment that she might sleep longer if it meant not having to face the throbbing in all her muscles. But as her head cleared, she became more aware of the arm around her shoulders and the body sleeping beside her. At some point in her sleep, she'd wound up with her head on Damon's shoulder and her chest pressed against his torso. All that separated them was a blanket she hadn't remembered crawling under and the thin fabric of the t-shirt he wore.

Shocked, she jerked upright. Her wings snapped open behind her, knocking Damon onto the floor with no effort at all. He landed with a painful thud, his head barely missing the side table, and then she heard him grumbling as he pulled himself to his knees and rested his arms on the edge of the bed.

"Morning, sunshine," he said. His hair was everywhere and his eyes were bright. Suddenly, her head was pounding all over again.

She started to apologize and couldn't get the words out right. When had he gotten into bed with her? _Why_ had he thought it was a good idea? He'd said they were friends. As far as she was concerned, friends didn't need to share the same bed. Friends didn't need to be that close.

The Screening Board chimed. Immediately, she thought of her future self and future Damon. The warning they'd left for her, and the many clues they'd left about their future together. If they were to appear again at the moment, Damon would see what she'd seen, and she wondered, against her wishes, what he would think of it.

"Apex is starting in 10…9…8…"

A polite voice began the countdown. Bonnie felt the banging in her head grow worse as she realized that the shutters were still open on the windows.

The temperature in the room rose by the second. The air clouded with steam. Bonnie could feel herself burning. She flung herself across the bed and stumbled on stiff legs to the windows. The closer she got, the worst it got, the feeling that her insides were boiling right beneath her skin.

"Should I be concerned?" Damon asked, gasping behind her.

"5…4…3…"

Her wings folded over to shield her eyes from the blinding light. She slumped against the wall and found the latch Paula had showed her how to use. She slid to the floor as she pulled it, hearing body sizzling and feeling light-headed. It was exactly as Samael had said. She felt like she was evaporating.

Then the shutters were closing, slower than she would have liked. They lowered. The blinding light shrank until there was barely a slither remaining. And then it was gone.

It took a moment for the temperature in the room to return to normal and her eyes to adjust. Bonnie sat slumped against the wall, watching Damon lie on his back with one knee propped up and his hands on his head.

"Bonnie, what the hell was that?" he asked as if it were somehow her fault. As if she hadn't saved both of their asses. She pulled herself to her feet and walked over to him with her arms folded across her chest.

"That was Apex." She rolled her eyes when he blinked up at her in confusion. "Apex is the brightest part of epoch."

"Are you even speaking English?"

"When sky bright, you no go outside. You stay inside keep shutters closed or die."

He opened his mouth, but she knew what he was going to ask, so she went ahead and answered the question. "Yes, we can die here, but only during Apex. We'd literally evaporate."

She thought about explaining further, but she was exhausted and all she wanted was a shower. So she turned for the bathroom.

It was weird walking with her wings, and she had yet to get used to their size. They were strong, too. Strong enough to send Damon tumbling to the floor. She laughed as she thought about it.

"By the way," she said before closing the bathroom door. Damon quirked an eyebrow at her as he waited for her to continue. "You sleep on the couch."

Inside the bathroom, her reflection scared her. As if her hair—tangled, matted, and clumping around her shoulders—wasn't bad enough, as if the bags under her eyes weren't deep enough, her wings were massive. They almost spanned the entirety of the mirror, but they were no longer naked at least. There was a nice soft down forming on them. Feathers. She was sprouting feathers. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

She turned to see how they looked from the back, wondering how she was supposed to wear clothes. She thought maybe they might be retractable, or hoped anyway. Clutching the edge of the sink, she leaned forward, staring into her own tired eyes and trying to focus.

"Please go in," she muttered and closed her eyes. A moment passed and nothing happened. She thought she should give up. The retracting thing was only wishful thinking, and she knew it would have made things too easy. But then she felt two snaps along her back, like someone popping her with giant rubber bands. She opened her eyes, and they were gone. Her back was completely smooth except for two long scars along her skin. She was normal again.

After her shower, she stepped out into the room, hoping Damon could explain.

He was sprawled across the couch with the book Samael had given her. He looked up when she came out in a towel, her hair dripping wet.

"Something's missing," he said.

"Yeah, my wings. I can make them disappear."

"Of course you can." He held the book up to his face and turned the page.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Bonnie asked, running her fingers through her natural curls and wishing for a brush.

"It means that nothing here makes sense until you realize that it's not supposed to," he said and clarified, "make sense, I mean."

"I'm not following."

Damon snapped the book shut and tossed it on the off-white ottoman.

"Back in the real world, there was this thing called magic," he explained. "You were a witch, so you had a fair amount of magic of your own. The important thing to know about magic is that it predates everything. Vampires, werewolves—"

"Werewolves?" Bonnie asked, not liking the sound of the word. It seemed even more threatening than the word vampire, and she didn't think that could be possible.

"Werewolves. Half human, half mangy mutt. Nasty creatures, but that's beside the point."

"And what is the point?" She hoped he'd get to the root of the conversation sooner rather than later. If he knew something that could help them better understand Elysium, she needed to know what it was.

"The point is that no one knows where magic originated. This book says that Elysium is on a different plane, one satisfyingly close to the plane that holds Earth, so if magic could be on Earth—"

"Magic could be here?"

"There you go," Damon said, wagging his eyebrows. "You're almost to the center of the Tootsie Pop."

"So me being able to move us from place to place before was magic?"

He nodded. Bonnie sat down in an arm chair, clutching her towel. "And my wings are magic, too?"

"It's very likely. When you think about it, it explains everything not just the teleporting. I'm still a vampire."

"Minus the blood lust."

Damon gave her a cunning smile and said, "How can there be blood lust when there is no blood? You just had wings claw their way out of your skin like something in a terrible eighties horror film, and yet you didn't bleed. Not one red drop."

Bonnie slapped her palm to her forehead, wondering why she hadn't noticed that. It was true that she'd been delirious with pain, but not bleeding when your skin was being ripped apart seemed like a pretty big thing to miss. She racked her brain, trying to figure out if anything Damon told her would explain the message she'd gotten from her future self. She came to the conclusion that it didn't, but she was thankful for the information none the less. At this point, any little bit helped.

"Now, here's the problem. According to the book, your new BFF's are planning to expand the Elysium plane by devouring the planes that surround it. The Earthen plane is number one on the list. Everyone on Earth will die and be faced with a choice, the same choice you made."

"They can't make the choice I made," Bonnie said, a little too much anxiety in her voice. Damon stared at her for a moment, and she figured he was waiting for her to explain, but he stood abruptly and edged around her.

"You and I agree on that, at least."

But that wasn't a good thing. Damon was going to have to make a choice of his own, and if he didn't choose to give up his memories, he would be sent away. She would be in Elysium without a tie to the life she could no longer remember, and although she knew she could handle anything, the thought of losing him when he was all she had was the loneliest most miserable thought in the world.

She figured she only had one choice. She had to get herself and Damon out of Elysium as soon as possible. She had magic and she had wings. Something was going to have to give.


	5. Chapter 5

_**HEY GUYS! Thank you to everyone who reads or comments on this. It really is a ton of fun to write, and I can't tell you how happy it makes me that others are enjoying it as well.**_

_**Lots of love,**_

_**raniblows**_

**Chapter 5.1**

They waited until darkness fell again before going out. To be safe, they took the conventional route. Through doors, and hallways, and stairwells. All of which were empty.

"This really takes the fun out of sneaking out," Damon said as they approached the exit. A row of glass doors that mirrored their reflections back at them.

Bonnie bit back a smile. She admitted that Damon could be funny. At times. He walked a fine line between charming and annoying and she never knew which side he'd fall on.

The sky outside was dark and endless. While the hallways in the building had been empty, the sidewalks outside it were not. People gathered around tables set up outside restaurants that played loud music, and cafés with flashing neon coffee cups above the entrances. More of the strange circular cars filled the streets, covered in lights. One whisked by, creating a draft that blew Bonnie's curls away from her face.

"Do you think you could be happy here?" Damon asked, taking her off guard.

His expression was serious, yet somehow indifferent, as he watched her face.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"I was just thinking about what you left behind in Mystic Falls," he said. "An unfaithful boyfriend, a best friend who could never put you first, and a slew of dead relatives."

Her eyes narrowed as they walked. The picture he painted was not a pretty one. And for the first time, she was happy she didn't have her memories.

"Don't get me wrong. The Gilberts always mean well. Even the little hunter who could, but you were always collateral damage." Damon held her waist, moving her out of the path of a mob of screaming people in leafy hats who ran down the sidewalk with their arms waving and the bells around their necks jingling. "I know why I want to go back, why I have to, but you? I can't think of a thing you'd have to gain."

He looked into a store front as they passed, oblivious to the fact that she was staring at him.

The person she'd seen on her Screening Board, her future self, looked happy. Wherever she was. And Bonnie's thoughts on the future were all that brought her any comfort. The idea that she could figure everything out and find peace. Real peace. With her memories and with…Damon?

The possibilities the future presented might have been bright, but the more she learned about her past, the darker it seemed. And maybe Damon was right. Maybe she didn't have anything to gain by trying to leave Elysium.

They'd walked for a while when Bonnie found a shadowed corner private enough for what they needed. She grabbed Damon's hand and pulled him into a small nook between two buildings. Space was limited, and they were almost chest to chest as she stared up into his eyes.

"Where we going?" he asked her. The confidence in his voice seemed wrong. As if he believed she could just pick a place and move them there with no problem at all. She didn't have that same faith.

"I don't know," she said and shrugged, "hopefully somewhere with grass."

Then she closed her eyes. With his hands in hers, they moved.

Bonnie didn't know how to describe the feeling of traveling. It was like falling, but her feet never left the ground, and there was no fear.

She opened her eyes to a clearing. Wide and round. Surrounded by shades of darkness. From the grass to the trees to the blackest sky.

Damon's hands slipped out of her grasp and he was gone. She felt him breeze by her from behind. Then from the side. His laugh seemed to fill the clearing, and then he stood in front of her. His hair messy like it'd gotten caught in the wind.

"You like this place?" she asked, noticing the smile on his face.

"You could have done worse. Now, let's see those wings."

She held her coat tighter, feeling self-conscious. She still wasn't used to the idea of having wings in the first place, and she wasn't fond of the idea of whipping them out. It all felt so private for some reason.

"Turn around," she told him.

"For what?"

"Just do it," she said, eyes steadied on his. "Please."

"You know, I really hate that word," he said, but he cooperated.

Once his back faced her, she undid the belt around her coat and let it fall to the ground at her feet. Beneath it, she wore a simple white shirt with a deep back V and shorts. Comfortable enough for physical activity.

Pulling her hair up from her neck, she focused on the light tingling sensation that hadn't left her since she'd woken up that morning. As she concentrated, the tingling became burning. Deep and thorough, but painless. Then she felt them pull away from her, springing out into the cool night air and waving at her side.

"You have feathers," Damon said, turning to look at her.

She studied the feathers layered over the arch in her wing and released a satisfied breath.

"I have feathers," she said, nodding. "I guess it's time to see if I can fly."


	6. Chapter 6

**Again, thank you to anyone who follows, likes, or comments. I suck at responding to comments/messages, but I love you all!**

**Chapter 6**

At first, Damon refused to let her try alone.

"Just take me with you," he said simply. As if he were travel size. Small enough to fit in a backpack or in her pockets.

"I don't even know if I can do this," she said, feeling the wind in the bits of hair that had fallen out of her high bun.

"That is exactly why I should go with you. In case you come tumbling down like a character in a bad nursery rhyme."

"What good are you if we both fall out of the sky, huh?"

"I'd cushion the fall."

"And why would I need that? It's not like we can die."

They were wasting time. All his protective act did was prove that he didn't have any more faith in her abilities than she did, and that frustrated her more than she thought it should.

"I hate you for making me say this," he said through clenched teeth, "but I am concerned about you. We may not be able to die, but we can certainly feel pain. Or have you forgotten already?"

"Of course, I haven't forgotten," she said. "I don't think I'll ever forget what I experienced last night. I still have to do this on my own, though."

He threw his hands in the air and took a step back, giving Bonnie the space she would need. The rest depended on her.

"I'll be right here if it all comes crashing down," he said.

"You always struck me as the comforting type."

After a breath, Bonnie began flapping her wings. She hated that word. Flapping. And she thought she should call it something else. Waving, fluttering, something a bit more graceful.

Her wings created a breeze in her hair and his, but she didn't move an inch off the ground. She focused on fluttering harder and faster. Their little part of the clearing became a whirlwind.

"Silly me," Damon said. "This whole time I've been calling them wings when in reality they're just glorified fans."

"You're not helping." The spike in her voice seemed to have an effect on her wings, which beat harder.

Damon braced himself against the torrent and watched her, caught in her own tornado, looking confused by her own actions.

"This isn't working." Her wings stopped. She lost her balance and dropped to her knees in the grass. "I am a flightless bird. A chicken. A gorgeous chicken, but still."

She glared up at him, wondering how even in the darkness surrounding them, his eyes were still bright and clear.

"Gorgeous? Someone thinks highly of herself."

"Right," Bonnie said. "What was that word you used to describe me earlier? Majestic."

"So you need a crash course in sarcasm as well as flying. Stand up." He took her hands and pulled her to her feet.

"What the hell do you know about flying?" she asked, yanking her hands out of his grasp.

"I know that you can't fly in the fetal position."

"I was not in the fetal position."

"You were hugging your arms to your chest and squinting like you thought something was going to jump out at you. You might as well've curled in a ball with your cheek pressed against the ground and your thumb in your mouth, and that is an adventure for another night."

"I think I just threw up a little in my mouth," Bonnie said, turning away from him, but he was right there waiting for her with a cocky smile and excited eyes.

"And there we have our problem. Little Bonnie Bennet wound so tight that if you pull her in any direction, she bounces back like a slinky toy. Even in death, you're boring."

Her wings began to wave as her anger grew.

"I hate you," she sneered.

"You know when you used to look at me like that it meant one of two things. Either my brain was about to explode or you were about to set me on fire. Nice parlor tricks. Marginally intimidating. But now I'm thinking you were just being passive aggressive the whole time because you were too timid to fight."

Bonnie's wings beat faster with every word he spoke. She could feel herself losing control. Her whole body buzzed with hot energy, and it scared her.

"Stop talking," she said, struggling to keep her voice calm.

"Or what?"

The air exploded around them, knocking Damon back a few steps. Bonnie shot into the air and darted toward the ink black darkness above. She felt the night rush around her, swirling in her vision as her mind caught up to what was happening.

She was flying.

Her wings flapped, taking her higher, and then she dove. As she swooped back toward the clearing, she lost her bearings. Her heart pounded as she tried to get control of her wings, but the rhythm was off. She screamed as she fell, and then there were arms around her. She stared into Damon's face, her wings drooped behind her as if in shame.

"And it all came crashing down," he said, studying her face to make sure she was okay. She laughed. Hard and loud.

Confused, he set her on her feet.

"That was amazing," she said.

"Was it?"

"It was like I didn't even know what was happening. Everything felt dizzy and perfect, and it was like I didn't have control over anything at all."

"You say that like it's the first time."

"It might as well be." If she'd ever felt anything like this before, it was all lost to her now. This feeling was completely new, and it excited her beyond all else.

"I want to go again," she said, staring up at the sky. "This time, I'll go higher, and try turning. I just want to control it."

"That's the problem." Damon stood beside her and looked up at the sky as well. "You want to control everything. Always have. That's probably why you hated me to start. Because I'm like a stallion. I can't be broken, but you can take me for a ride if you're lucky."

"Are you quoting your diary right now?" Bonnie asked him.

"Funny, but that's Stefan's thing. My brother," he added for her benefit. "Your thing is squeezing the fun out everything until the world is nice and safe and duller than you."

"So what's your thing?" she asked, looking at him.

"Good question." He positioned himself in front of her. So close she forgot to breathe for a moment. "My thing is helping people get rid of their things."

"You're not going to kiss me right now, are you?" she asked, searching his eyes.

"The thought might have crossed my mind."

She snickered. "Is that why you called me majestic?"

He shook his head and turned away.

"You had to suck the fun out of it."

"Oh, come on. You were going to kiss me? What are we the last two people in the universe?"

"That sounds like something you'd have said when we were still alive."

He side-eyed her and shook his head again. The little bird was two feet tall with giant wings sticking out her back and she had never looked less repulsive.

"The rules don't change just because we're dead and I'm battling a little memory loss," she said.

"Interesting word choice considering that you gave your memories away."

"Yeah, I gave my memories away. So what's your excuse?"

She waited for him to look at her, and when he did, she smiled. In the moment, she could see it. How they could wind up together in the future…as friends.

"I'm going to try again," she said, bouncing in place.

"Your excitement reminds me of myself in a sorority house."

"That's disgusting." She laughed.

"I'm disgusting. Or I should be. This place is making me lose my edge."

"What a shame," she said, circling him. Surprised that she meant it.

"I think you just gave me a compliment." His eyes flashed as he watched her move around him. "If you're flying again, try not to think too much. It's like breathing. You start counting breaths and suddenly your lungs feel foreign."

"So basically, don't be so controlling?" she asked.

"Basically."

She smiled and turned, flapping her wings. Then she took off running, screaming, and waving her hands in the air as her feet left the ground.

**It looks like Bonnie and Damon are finally having a little fun, for now.**

**Thanks again :D**


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